London's Wonders
by OneDarkandStormyNight
Summary: For my The Voice in the Dream series, a collection of one-shots relating Arthur, Merlin, and the others uniting their memories of Old Albion with their new, London lives. Story #3: Hello. Summary: A short phone conversation between Arthur and Merlin, just for fun. And an author's note.
1. Great Merlin, Goblin-Releaser

_Like the summary says, this is a place to collect all TVITD stories that aren't quite important enough to get their own, individual places in my story-list. It's not much, but I hope you like it anyway. What is with Merlin always letting out this goblin...?_

* * *

**Great Merlin, Goblin-Releaser**

Initially, after those first few weeks of settling into this new life he'd gained, Arthur was faced with a problem that had nothing to do with Morgana's presence in the modern world, or his duties as CEO of his family's companies, or even how long would be the appropriate time to wait before asking Guinevere to marry him. The problem dawned on him all at once, one morning as he and Merlin stood in the elevator of their apartment building, while the secretary-warlock (he still could hardly believe it) commented in between sips of his hot chocolate that, if sixty was the age when elderly people got discounts just for being elderly, he should get every meal he bought for free, and they should probably even pay _him_, if he did the math right.

Even all those thirty years in Camelot after Arthur's rise to the throne, he'd never quite slowed down enough—none of them had, he supposed—to stop and consider the manservant always right behind him, and later, the warlock at his side.

It wasn't that Merlin acted as though he expected any special treatment. He woke Arthur up in the mornings with exuberant greetings, made quick work of helping him out when he needed it, huffed sharply and rolled his eyes when he thought no one was looking, and was generally an overall force of nature hidden just in the background. He was everything he had always been, only now he had a history about him.

Even so, Arthur couldn't shake this feeling of sudden confusion and awe over him. Every time the once king laid eyes upon him these days, he saw one-third Merlin, two-thirds _Emrys_. For every little movement he saw his poorly-dressed secretary make, he saw three flashes of a mighty warlock in an indigo cloak, a thousand years cleverer and stronger than anyone.

Throughout the next week, Arthur thought often that Merlin must surely see this in himself. Surely he must know what sort of debt Arthur owed him, especially now, when it had had thirty years in Camelot and few months in this time to build and grow.

Merlin didn't seem to notice, their lives so busy and work-filled as they were, how that Arthur resisted teasing him so often, nevermore calling him names or messing up his (lengthening) hair or any of those little gestures King Arthur had always been so keen to deliver. Arthur wasn't as sure of himself as his king-self had been, he felt—at least, not with Merlin. King Arthur had known his place, two years older than Merlin, his master and his champion; Arthur now may have been the same man, but he wasn't all of those things. He was just a man—so young and inexperienced and probably foolish compared to Merlin.

Foolish compared to Merlin. No, he was definitely not as sure of himself as he had been. He wanted to be; he wanted to feel as much Merlin's king as he had been before, but how could he, when Merlin was so ancient and wise and full of wonder? How could he ever think himself Merlin's authority now?

Then, one day, he and Leon stood in front of a pile of splintered wood in a council room in London, and he didn't much care _how_ wonderful and honorable Merlin was.

"Thirty minutes," he fumed to his friend, "he is thirty minutes late. I knew I should have kept him with me. There's no telling where he got off to, and he's probably the only one on the planet who can fix this."

He gestured toward the mess of plywood that had been the model for a new medical research facility Leon's company was going to open, and the once-king wondered how on earth he was going to convince his board it was a good investment when he couldn't even convince himself, by the looks of the destroyed scale model.

"How could this have happened, anyway?" Leon was musing, taking the blow considerably better than his new friend. "I thought all the doors were meant to be locked."

There was no accusation there, only sincere curiosity, but Arthur felt a stab of guilt nonetheless for not ensuring the security was better himself.

"I don't know," he answered with much less rage than before. "It doesn't matter now. All I know is that we're not going to get a coin for a pack of chewing gum from my board if a miracle doesn't happen, soon."

As though summoned by the choice of wording, Merlin was at his elbow.

"Oh, no."

Spoken like a man who had been afraid this would happen…like he knew exactly _how_ it had happened.

"Where have you been?" Arthur demanded hotly. "Our DVD player is busted, the scale model is destroyed, and just look at the chairs _you_ ordered to be delivered for the board members."

He held one up for emphasis, and the old warlock winced as various Disney princesses smiled at him from the pink plastic back.

"I need you to fix this, Merlin, _please_."

The old warlock seemed to snap out of his daze at that, and pulled his eyes away from Princess Ariel's huge blue pair in front of him; he then proceeded to shift from foot to foot, babbling in that suspicious way Arthur was more than used to hearing in his dream-memories from his insane manservant.

"Okay…ah…set out the scale model as best you can and I'll take care of it in just a minute. Promise."

"And the DVD player and chairs?" Leon pushed calmly.

"Yeah, I'll get new ones. I'll be done before they arrive. Don't worry."

He'd skittered two steps before Arthur's voice halted him, for it was in these moments, when the young man least realized it, that he sounded the most like the great King Arthur of Camelot.

"Wait."

Merlin's shoulders were tensed as he turned, slowly.

"Colin, what is going on?"

Merlin was more than aware—as all of them who knew the pair were—that when Arthur called him _that_, he was one wrong word away from being in trouble. Nevertheless, he flashed his easiest, most sparkly smile.

"Nothing."

Like Arthur was the one acting funny.

Leon watched in wise silence.

"_Merlin_."

And now he was _really_ in trouble.

The warlock's mouth tightened at one side and he took two hasty steps back to Arthur, as though afraid someone was eavesdropping through the walls of the private room.

"It's a goblin," he murmured lowly, staring straight into his king's eyes so that Arthur would recognize how serious he was.

"A goblin."

He thought in a flash of his beloved Camelot, of Gaius being possessed and of baldness and stolen gold and _donkey ears_.

"Yeah, that one," Merlin confirmed his worst horror, flinching a bit as he read the way the old king's face had paled.

It took Arthur a moment to get his words untangled, as Leon began to look around the floor, as if expecting (or fearing) the snarky little creature to be at his ankles.

"What's it doing _here_?" the king all but hissed.

"Well," Merlin's tone was slightly defensive and even more so chagrined, familiar in so many of Arthur's most ridiculous memories, "I didn't want anyone releasing him, so I hid him in Avalon Haven. I thought maybe he could help me—you know—find out if there were more goblins around."

"Why would you possibly want _more_ like it?" he barely quieted his outburst, as a pair of secretaries passed the open doorway.

"It's not that I _want_ more," he returned. "I just thought…goblins are the simplest type of magical creature. If what we've talked about—if _magic_ really is returning to the world—there will start to be more of them around. I thought he could sense them out for me, that's all. I thought I could keep hold of him, this time."

"That's _all_?" he actually did hiss this time, unable to believe his ears. "You released a goblin from over a thousand years ago into the streets of London. How could you be so stupid?"

He really did want to know. Shouldn't a warlock of one thousand, five hundred something know better than this by now? Shouldn't _Merlin_, the Great, be a bit wiser than that?

"We had a deal," Merlin offered weakly, sounding less and less _Great_ and more and more _Not-so-great_.

Arthur threw his hands up in a partly-enraged, partly-helpless gesture.

"Oh, well, then," he fumed boisterously, "we can all see how fantastic _that_ turned out."

He tossed one arm in an angry movement toward the shattered scale model, exploded DVD player, and pink, sparkly chairs.

Merlin gave him a desperate, guilty, slightly wounded look, but then it all dropped away from his young face at Leon's shout,

"There it goes!"

And the three of them bolted from the room, chasing the little, green figure with the pierced ear and obnoxious laugh, trying to maneuver themselves between it and unaware passersby while keeping it out of any unwilling host body.

* * *

In the end, they caught the little troublemaker and returned it straight to Avalon Haven—along with a new lady-friend goblin (if female goblins could be considered "ladies"), which was enough to make the entire situation almost seem worth it, since Merlin was so thrilled that he almost started to cry when they finally caught up with the goblin and his newfound mate mixing up envelopes in all the wrong bins in the mailroom. The warlock spent the whole rest of the afternoon babbling about how _It's true, Arthur! Magic really is alive again! This proves it. The world is changing; it's becoming like Old Albion—like Camelot!_

Arthur wasn't sure Leon quite understood Merlin's excitement, the way the quiet young man just smiled amusedly as the old warlock went on and on (without pausing to breathe). Arthur didn't quite understand it himself, but later that night, when he was alone in his flat, he found that Merlin's joyfulness had spread. He tried so hard to keep himself cool and objective about all of this (as cool and objective as it was possible to be when one finds out he was once King Arthur), but those words, _"like Camelot!"_, rung in his mind and fanned a flame that he'd always had when he thought of his beloved kingdom. The people of the land were so different from the old world, but he knew, deep down inside his soul, that they were still _his_ people.

There was more than just that, though. As it turned out, Merlin wasn't the otherworldly, all-powerful being from another world that young, modern Arthur had been assuming he was. He was just _Merlin_—trouble-prone, scarf-wearing, blue-eyed idiot Merlin. If anything, his years of wandering Earth by himself had made him a little _more_ reckless and ridiculous. It was no wonder the gods had designed his immortal body to resist injury; who knows what horrors he would have brought down on himself by now.

Arthur was King. Merlin was Warlock. Neither was stronger or better than the other. Arthur needed Merlin to help and guide him in all areas of his life, just as he always had in Camelot. Merlin needed Arthur to channel his magic, to give him something solid and purposeful to put his mind on.

Arthur felt a jolt of surprise at that revelation. Merlin needed him. He needed their friendship the way it worked—the way it had always worked. They both did. So why was he worrying about it so much? Nothing had changed. Merlin had only become more _Merlin_. He needed someone to keep him in line even more than ever.

The next day, Arthur teased him a little more loudly and rudely, just to make up for the past week.


	2. Merlin the Great (Junk-Foodaholic)

_I think I should have just named this whole story folder "Merlin the Great," because it seems like every idea I get is making fun of poor Merlin's title like this. It's just too easy.  
In other news...It's getting warm outside! I'm not generally one for multiple exclamation points, either, so you know this is a big deal. I'm sure I can't be the only person out there who despises the cold.  
I hope you're all enjoying your weather, wherever you may be. If you're in the cold, maybe will warm you up a little..._

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**Merlin the Great (Junk-Foodaholic)**

The sky outside the high wall of glass in Arthur's westward-facing apartment was clear as the sun set, sending rays of red-orange light into the large living room. Merlin half-stumbled over a cardboard box beside one of the grand bookshelves as he entered, unable to see it for the three boxes of pizza and two of doughnuts in his arms.

"Is that the prototype for that…erm…thing that guy wants you to fund?" he questioned as he circled the large fireplace, which was placed not in the wall but out toward the middle of the room, a beautiful fixture used in the richest of places.

"Yes," Arthur answered, not bothering to glance up as he'd heard Merlin stumble and knew exactly who had entered and over what he'd tripped (plus no one but Merlin just came inside without knocking first).

"I got you some after-lunch-before-supper food," the old warlock declared, using his magic to settle the boxes on the low, marble top that had been designed around the fireplace to act as a table.

"Well, that is very kind of you," Arthur stated, and he _did_ look up now, the raised eyebrow and straight line of his lips matching the mood of his boisterous voice, "since you missed my lunch completely today."

"Ah, yes. Sorry about that, my lord. I lost track of time."

"Don't you always?" Arthur's little murmur wasn't even heard as Merlin continued,

"Perhaps this makes up for it?"

"Oh, _absolutely_." The once-king's tone hadn't eased the slightest bit. "Miss my lunch and make up for it with greasy, fattening, and, oh, look"—He lifted up a doughnut box to reveal the name of the pizza's origin printed in excited, orange lettering underneath.—"from the cheapest places to buy such foods in all of London. Well done, Colin."

Merlin's mouth curled at one end with dissatisfaction. Gwen's health kicks were really starting to get into Arthur's head. It wasn't as though Arthur didn't work out enough; there wasn't any risk of his getting fat off it or anything, and he'd eaten much worse things in Camelot. Surely a little pizza wasn't as terrible as half the things that old wench of a royal cook had served.

"I was low on cash," he said, as he plopped down on the comfortable couch on the opposite end as his friend. "It's got vegetables on it."

"Hm. That makes it all better, then."

"Perhaps if you'd pay me more, you'd get something better next time, sir."

There was a little mumble of reply, which Merlin didn't bother trying to interpret or pursue. They both knew that Arthur paid Merlin plenty more than was necessary. Arthur went back to his paperwork, ignoring the pizza and doughnut boxes altogether.

That wouldn't deter Merlin, though. He kicked off his Converses and pulled his knees up to his chest, thoroughly enjoying his first bite of veggie pizza and the comfortable silence that settled over them as the sun continued to set. Neither of them really moved again for a while, Merlin's magic preventing the need when he merely blinked and the lights switched on to drive out the evening darkness.

It was some three minutes later that Arthur suddenly looked away from his laptop screen.

Merlin cried out indignantly as his little bag of M&Ms was all at once gone from his hand without so much as a warning.

"What was that for?" he demanded, narrowing his eyes when his king held the bag just out of his reach. "I said I was sorry. I'll make you a salad if you want something healthy. You know you only need to ask, sire."

"That is not the point, Merlin."

The old man who looked so young stopped his lunging for the bag at the sound of his ancient name. Arthur was using it more and more these days, it was true, as "Colin James the poor assistant" quickly faded into "Merlin the great warlock" in his eyes and the eyes of their friends. There was something about the way he said it this time, though; Merlin knew him better than he knew himself, could pick out every emotion Arthur was feeling by the mere sound of his voice. He could hear a sure protectiveness there now, and so he paused to listen but did not stop glaring at the thief of his beloved chocolate.

"The point is," Arthur continued without apology, "that you have eaten two pieces of pizza and a doughnut already."

"So what?"

"And you had sugar and honey on your bread this morning."

"There is absolutely nothing wrong with sugar and honey."

"You ate three pieces of it," Arthur countered evenly. "And that's not even including whatever else you consumed while I wasn't with you. I would be willing to bet you've had at least one bag of M&Ms already today, haven't you?"

"Arthur—"

"_Haven't you_?"

Merlin blinked at him, twice, the overhead lights casting shadows of his long lashes over his cheekbones. The pure confusion on his sharply-lit face deepened.

"Yes, but I don't know why that matters."

He reached for the M&Ms again.

Arthur tossed them into the fire.

"You," he stated slowly and confidently as Merlin scowled, "are not immortal anymore, Merlin."

"I know that, sir." The familiar sarcasm seemed to have reached the level of acerbic since Arthur had been gone for a thousand years. "Thank you so much for the good news."

"You need to realize," the young man went on, retaining all that authority he'd used in his most vicious battles as king of Camelot, "that you _can_ get unhealthy now. You're going to start eating and drinking things that will keep you healthy. You don't have immortality to do that for you anymore; you have to do it for yourself, like the rest of us."

"Says who?"

"Me," he retaliated, without pretense, knowing that no matter how much Merlin hated it, he would hear and obey his king if Arthur truly meant it. "If you're still hungry, there are grapes in the refrigerator."

With that, he opened his laptop once more and proceeded to get back to his work for the afternoon. After a few moments of silence, firm and unrelenting on Arthur's end of the couch and perfectly stunned on Merlin's, he added, while he typed,

"I know you're still used to living like you're immortal, but things aren't like that anymore, Merlin. You can't just do what you want whenever you want without consequences. If you refuse to obey me, I'll just have to ban junk food altogether. It's for your own good."

Merlin blinked at him again, and then stared into the raging fire for several heartbeats at the now-blackened bag, the colorful words and characters on the front long burnt away. He thought long and hard for several minutes about Arthur's words (for no matter how independent he was or how he would refuse to admit it, Arthur _did_ always have the last word on any matter).

At last, he smiled. He hoped the grapes in Arthur's kitchen were purple; those were his favorite.

**END**

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_If you haven't been able to guess yet, in my TVITD series, I'm trying to keep as much of the show's themes and feels as possible, but I'm also adding a few little things new to the mix. Merlin isn't Arthur's servant in this modern setting, of course; though he will always be Arthur's servant in many ways and his caretaker, they are more simply friends now. I want to keep their friendship as beautiful and real as it was in the show, but this tiny twist to it (making them more equals, I mean) is going to serve as a plot-pusher in future fics I have planned out. I want to put the king/servant and the best-friend aspects in a good balance, but I promise that I won't ever change it too much. Reinventing something already so fantastic wouldn't be smart at all. I hope you'll trust me, and I hope you're enjoying it so far! More to come soon (plus a little action/adventure)!_


	3. Hello

_This is just a little something I threw together in, like, ten minutes or less on a little piece of paper I found while out with my friends. I image it taking place on a subway, in the POV of some random woman standing beside Merlin when he answers his phone. Just a little snippet into their daily lives, really. :)_

* * *

"Hello? Arthur?"

_"Oh, would you look at that! He's finally bothered answering."_

"I answer all the time."

_"Yes, for Thomas Gray and others who don't seem to like me very much. I do wonder what sort of sense it makes to answer your mobile when business associates call but not for your actual employer, Merlin."_

"That is not how it is at all, sir. I always answer for you."

_"If 'always' means 'never' all of a sudden, perhaps."_

"Well, maybe it's only because I already know what you're going to say."

_"Oh, is _that_ what it is? Go on, then, o mighty sorcerer—what am I going to say?"_

"'You're already forty-five minutes late, _Mer_lin,' and, 'I desperately need those papers that _I_ forgot to take with me to the conference, _Mer_lin,' and, 'Can you somehow reach into the very fabric of space and time and make the train get here faster, _Mer_lin?'"

_"Can you do that?"_

"No!"

_"All right, then! No need to turn into a grumpy old troll. Just get here as fast as you can; I'll be in the hotel lobby."_

"I'll be running through the streets with abounding haste, sire."

_"Good. Don't trip and hurt yourself."_

"I'll try very hard not to, sire."

_"Stop calling me that. You're only saying it because you're annoyed."_

"Why would you think that? It's not as if you're _being_ annoying."

_"Merlin. Shut up."_

Silence.

_"Well, then...see you...when you get here."_

"Yes, sire."

Click.

* * *

_I love picturing Merlin as having more of the old "Dragoon the Great's" personality in my TVITD-verse. The Old Man Merlin by himself is one of my most favorite characters ever!  
Also: (336) 529-7327. That's my cell phone number. I told you because I'm about to say something probably random and very desperate: I'm going to camp this week, and by that I mean I'm being all but forced to attend a glorified youth activity where I'm basically trapped in two rooms for five days straight with at least forty people wearing culottes, and a three-minute shower limit. I would absolutely love nothing more than to hear from any one of you during the next few days, so please do send me a text if you're bored (like I will be). Just a simple "this is (insert penname), I read your Merlin stuff, hi" would be great. A weird request to make, I know, but I would actually love to get to know my regular readers better, anyway, and it will really help me not feel entirely trapped this week; trust me, by the third day, I'm gonna need it. lol Crossing my fingers in hopes that one of you will take me up on it. Hehe  
In any case, have a good week and I'll try to post something else soon! :)_


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